Interesting book for its naivete. Equally interesting is the background items to the Vietnam era, some provided by An and some by Bass' own research team. Although the author increasingly comes to question everything spoken by An, Bass eventually inserts a cautionary note to preface the entire book. The author does have an admirable polish to his writing style. His style, unfortunately, happens to be subverted by his super-gullibility. I was horrified at reporter's inability to not be led by the nose at every turn by a supposedly ex-espionage agent. Apparently, Bass thought An's propaganda work ended with the 1975 fall of Saigon. It is absurd that in Bass' research An was never questioned by any non-communist who had survived the war and who did not function as a journalist. Too many US military memoirs state that Saigon must have had mole at the highest level of MACV. The fact that so many missions were immediately compromised (hot LZs) made it obvious to everyone involved in action, except to the brass and the White House, that something sinister was going on. This book ends, appropriately enough, with tears from the statue of the Virgin Mary coincident with An's death. Apparently, to Bass' simple sensibilities, a nationalistic and anti-religious agent like An could in the end be welcomed into heaven by a symbol of traditional religion. An, having witnessed war for so long, had passed peacefully from one side to the other--at least in Bass' mind.

This is a complicated book. It attempts to detail the life activities of Pham Xuan An - a respected Vietnamese journalist who wrote for Time Magazine as well as serving as an analyst for many other journalists. It is now known that he was also a premier spy for North Vietnam during the war. He analyzed material that was available to him as a member the Saigon press corps and passed it along in coded messages, papers written in invisable ink and in person through the tunnels outside of Saigon.
Despite being a spy, An cared for his American peers - often going out on a limb to help them. His main goal was liberating his country from foreign domination - be it the French, the U.S., China or Cambodia. ( )

Pham Xuan An’s story is as intriguing as it is revealing about the Vietnam War. The author’s masterful account shows how An, who spent more than half a century providing critical intelligence for North Vietnam, faced certain death if his intelligence work were discovered by the United States, France, or the South Vietnamese government. Yet, An came to love Americans and democracy so much that he was sent to a “reeducation camp” after the war, where he would be satisfactorily re-immersed in communist doctrine.
An is the subject of three biographies written by Vietnamese authors, one by a French writer, and last year’s Perfect Spy: The Incredible Double Life of Pham Xuan An, Time Magazine’s Reporter and Vietnamese Communist Agent, by Larry Berman. Bass has written five previous books, including, Vietnamamerica: The War Comes Home and is Professor of English and Journalism at the University at Albany.
The book’s distinguishing feature is the author’s narratives of his meetings with An in Vietnam, beginning in 1992 and ending in 2006, shortly before An’s death at age seventy-nine. An was not always truthful or open about parts of his life, but these interviews provide excellent insight into the war from the communist perspective and show a growing closeness between Bass and An.
An was a patriot who loved his country and won sixteen medals for his service, including the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor. He was not only a spy but also an excellent strategic planner, who provided critical intelligence about the Diem regime, the Battle of Ap Bac, and the Tet Offensive. An learned his craft from America’s leading spymaster of the war, Colonel Edward Lansdale, who befriended him.
While his spy career flourished, An wrote for Reuters and Time Magazine, where he was admired by his colleagues, who were unaware of his spying. On more than one occasion, An interceded with the communists to save the lives of his American friends. Following An’s death, Frank McCullough his boss at Time, said, “Not once in the years he worked for me did An ever slant his reporting. Paradoxically, he loved the U.S. and its democracy.” This first-rate account, which will appeal to general readers as well as historians, portrays An as a man caught between two cultures who never lost sight of his ultimate goal, peace and prosperity for Vietnam.

by Karl Helicher

Copyright ForeWord Magazine, Volume 12, no. 1 ( )